Abducted by a Prince by Olivia Drake

shock Damien felt now. “You saw me?”
    “Quite. You looked rather sinister in your black coat and hat. And then you followed us home and stared at my cousin while she went up the walk.” Miss Stratham narrowed her eyes at him over the rim of her goblet. “I suspected there was something wicked about you—and I was right.”
    So much for believing he’d been discreet. Damien cursed himself for discounting this woman, who had turned out to be a far greater danger to his plan than he could ever have imagined.
    Brusquely, he said, “Then the very next day, you put on your cousin’s clothes and went to the modiste without her. Were you posing as her because you thought she needed protection from me?”
    Miss Stratham blinked, then gave a firm shake of her head. “No, I already explained why I attended the fitting. Though even if Beatrice hadn’t had a change of plans, I’d been toying with the notion of taking her place anyway because…”
    “Because?”
    Her expression suddenly troubled, she glanced at the fire for a moment before returning her gaze to him. “The previous evening, Walt came to my chamber. He warned me to keep Beatrice at home for the time being. He claimed that my uncle—the earl—wanted her to be punished for calling on Lady Milford without his permission. But I had the impression that Walt was lying to me.” Those dark eyes bored into Damien. “Now I understand why. He knew that you were a threat to his sister. He knew that you meant to do her harm.”
    “Not harm, ” Damien objected. “I merely wanted to hold her here until Walt brought the ransom. Then he could take Lady Beatrice back home and no one would be the wiser.”
    Miss Stratham gave an unladylike snort. “Did you think my grandmother and uncle wouldn’t notice her absence? Or that the servants wouldn’t gossip? The news of her disappearance would have been all over society within hours. Whether you’d seduced her or not, Beatrice would have been ruined before she’d even had a chance to make her debut!”
    He ignored the tight coil of guilt in his chest. “Nonsense. The season hasn’t yet begun, so no one in society would have missed her. And before leaving London, I sent instructions to Walt on how to protect her reputation. I told him to concoct a story about his sister being called out of town to nurse a sick friend. If he has a brain in his thick skull, he did exactly that—for you.”
    With a thump, Miss Stratham set down the goblet on the bench. “It’s you who have the thick skull, not Walt. No one will believe such a preposterous tale. You’d risk the reputation of a young lady just to line your pockets with gold.”
    Damien resented being attacked when she didn’t know the whole story. He felt provoked into saying, “I haven’t asked for gold. I only want Walt to return something that he stole from me. I gave him the chance to do so last week. When he refused, he left me no other choice but to force his hand.”
    “Stole from you? What?”
    He prowled back and forth through the shadows. The less she knew, the better. He didn’t want this harpy poking and prying into his past. “Never mind. Just tell me this. How close are you and Walt? Surely he will feel an obligation to rescue you.”
    Her lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. She glanced down, and the firelight illuminated the anxiety on her face. That look eroded Damien’s hope of salvaging victory from the jaws of defeat.
    When she returned her gaze to him, her expression was as bleak as the winter sea. “Walt may be my cousin, but I wouldn’t describe us as close. As to ransoming me, I don’t know. It all depends upon the value of this item. Is it terribly costly?”
    Damien had a sudden inkling of her lack of stature in the Earl of Pennington’s household. As a poor relation, she would be expected to serve the family members. But apparently her worth to them had a limit. And she knew it.
    Damn Walt! The weasel might very well abandon